The lock clicks open under my hands, and I allow myself a thin smile of satisfaction. I pull back the bits of metal I've pushed into the lock, replacing them inside my kit before stowing that inside my black jacket. I glance briefly around, making sure that no one else has stumbled upon me, or can see me through the line of bushes separating me from the street.

These kind of doors are my favorite. The walkway to the house goes around a corner, so the door isn't in direct view of the street the house is on, and it's the corner house so there are no inquisitive neighbors, just a line of tall bushes blocking the view. High class suburbs, not rich enough to have any cameras or security, but rich enough to have valuable things lying around their house. Profit, with minimal risk. It's almost perfect.

I straighten up, carefully opening the door. No squeaks, good. The couple that lives here is home, but that really doesn't matter to me. I've been doing this a long time, a little thing like sneaking around the occupants is simple enough. I slip inside, closing the door just as carefully as I'd opened it. It shuts with a barely audible click, and I release the handle. I glance down the hallway, letting my gaze linger on each door for a brief moment. One of the great things about suburbs, is that every house is built the same. I've never been in here before, but because I've been in a house in the same suburb I know the room layout already.

There are some small variations possible, as to what room they've made into what, but not much. Every master bedroom is in the same place, as is the wall safe.

I listen for a moment, taking the moment to make sure that my cloth gloves are secure and my boots aren't leaving any kind of tracks. I can pinpoint the low hum of conversation, and the background noise of some movie or show on TV. That means, given my knowledge of the layout of the house and the bit of studying I'd done before starting this, that they're in the living room. That's perfect. The safe and any valuables they have will be in the master bedroom, and there's no direct line of sight between the bedroom and the living room.

I slip down the hallway, my boots not making any noise against the padding of the rug laid out on top of their hardwood floors. I pause briefly at the closed door to the living room, making totally sure that the noise from within includes both of the couples voices, before continuing along to the door at the very end of the hall, the master bedroom.

It's cracked partially open, though the interior is dark, so all I have to do is slide through the empty space. I blink a few times, adjusting to the darkness of the room. The curtains are drawn over the window, so I don't have to worry about neighbors looking in, but I won't risk turning on the light. Not with the occupants in the house.

I cross the room to the desk arranged against one wall, slightly less careful now that I'm on a carpeted floor and separated from the residents by several walls. My steps are still nearly silent, an ingrained habit, but I'm not trying anymore. The desk is the woman's, a large mirror perched atop it and jewelry hanging everywhere, as well as stored within miniature drawers. I retrieve a small penlight from within my jacket, twisting it to turn it on, before retrieving a small black bag with a drawstring. There's no sense in taking anything but what's real, costume jewelry isn't going to make me anything at all.

I keep a good portion of my attention focused outwards, on the faint sounds I can hear, as I sort through the various pieces. Most of it is real gold, or silver, and a few of the jewels are real as well. Practiced as I am, it only takes a few minutes for me to sort through what's there, and I carefully reorganize everything exactly where it was when I got there. If I'm lucky, she'll assume that she's just misplaced it for a little while. I step away, crossing to the closet. It's one of those with slated wooden beams, still possible, with a bit of work, to see both into and out of, and I very carefully ease it far enough open for me to slide inside. These are one of the noisiest kinds of closets.

Past the standard doors, it's a walk-in closet. I shine my penlight up, at the very back, and let it settle on the safe inlaid in the back wall. I take the few steps necessary to cross the space of the closet and click the light off. Now, comes the part I can't guarantee. Cracking a safe without some serious drilling or explosives is a slow process, and I can't risk being in the house that long. So instead, I'll try a couple of basic things. If I get it open, great. If not, the jewelry will still give me a pretty decent profit.

First, the default combinations. A lot of people don't bother setting the combination to anything different than its default lock, and there's only four of those for the particular brand of safe installed into these suburbs. I've got them memorized. I spin the lock on the safe with several easy movements, giving it a gentle tug. It doesn't come open. I try the other three, to the same result. Alright next step.

Most people are pretty terrible about security. For a younger couple in their twenties like the one that lives here, it's not likely that they'll make the same mistakes as older ones, but still possible.

I take a brief look around, searching for scribbled notes on the walls or pieces of paper, and I find one. Victory.

People should really stop leaving their safe combinations on nondescript pieces of paper. They might think they're being subtle, but wow is it obvious.

I spin the combination in, and the safe comes open with a soft click and a quiet creak. I reach inside, retrieving the contents, and shuffle through them. There's a few pieces of extremely expensive looking jewelry – jackpot – and a few folded papers that I quickly identify as deeds to the house and some documents for their car. I don't deal in higher risk theft like that, so I replace the papers and shut the door of the safe again. As I turn back, crossing the small area to leave the closet, I hear a door open and close with a slam.

I freeze, barely breathing as I listen for any additional information.

There are some shouts, and thudding footsteps that are only slightly muffled by some kind of rug or carpet. I hear the couple's voices, and a third that is decidedly louder, growing closer. The couple sounds vaguely panicked, and I quickly tug the closet door completely closed, flattening myself against one of the walls and half into a bunch of hanging coats.

The door to the bedroom slams open, rebounding against the wall and spilling light into the bedroom, and I see a man back in. He's extremely tall, skinny, with long black hair, and my breath catches in my throat as he backs fully into the room and I see the gun in his right hand.

Shit, this is bad.

The couple follows him in, clearly reluctantly, and he directs them to the center of the room with a wave of the gun and a shout. I barely dare to breathe, my hands clenching as I very carefully and slowly stow the small black bag containing the jewelry I've stolen and the penlight within my jacket. If I need to make a fast escape, best to have my hands free. I'm pretty decent in a fight, if it comes to that.

The light flicks on, and I flatten myself a little farther into the sunken bit containing the coats so I'm not casting a shadow on the closet floor. The tall man is dressed pretty similarly to me, in skintight black pants and heavy boots, and black cloth gloves. Though his jacket is leather and mine is not. He's also lacking the black ski mask that I have pulled over my head like a beanie, to hide my distinctive hair. That difference makes me nervous.

I jerk as the gun goes off, deafeningly loud in the contained room, and the man of the couple topples over onto the floor. The woman screams, backing away with her hands over her mouth, only to freeze on the spot as the tall man gives another shout.

"Stay where ya' are, bitch!"

I stare in horror, my eyes falling to the man on the floor. Blood is staining the front of his white shirt, spreading alarmingly fast, and he's not moving. I pull my gaze back to the tall man as he steps forward. In the light, I can see that he's got one dark grey eye, the other covered by a black eye patch. He's grinning, single eye narrowed in clear excitement and amusement.

The woman is crying, I can hear it even though my eyes won't leave the face of the killer.

I never hurt people like this. The victims of my theft never even know I'm there, and they usually don't figure out anything's missing for days or even weeks. Even if they catch me in the process, which hasn't happened in quite a few years, I only ever need to make my escape. I never hurt anyone.

"Why don't ya' come over here, pretty li'l thing?" the man says in a high pitched voice, "We'll have some fun, huh?" Horror rises in my chest, my eyes widening, and I have to quell the swell of nausea in my stomach.

The woman gives a sob, and then a shouted, "Go to hell!"

No sooner has the last word left her mouth than the gun goes off again. I can't help but jerk again at the noise, and the following thud against the ground.

"Oh well," the man says, with only a trace of disappointment in his tone, "s good enough, I guess." The gun gets shoved into a jacket pocket, and the man pulls out a switchblade instead, which he flicks open. "Woulda liked ta do this with ya alive ya know, bitch?"

Two steps of his long legs takes him over to the two bodies, and I throw a hand over my mouth and slam my eyes shut as he kneels beside them and efficiently tears open both their shirts. I tremble in fear and horror, unable to ignore the wet sound of the knife splitting flesh. It feels like much longer than the minute or so it is before the tall man makes a satisfied noise and I hear him get to his feet. I flick my eyes open, watching him as he stows the now bloody knife in his jacket, carefully keeping my gaze away from the two bodies on the floor. He looks down at the corpses for a moment before shrugging and turning, leaving the room and flicking the light off as he exits.

I don't move, my gaze trained on the open door, until I hear the same slam from earlier, what I now recognize as the front door. I peel myself off the wall, pushing the closet door open and stepping outside. My hands are shaking, and I can only stomach a very brief glance at the two bodies on the floor before panic takes over.

I have to get out of here.

I force myself not to run for the front door, force myself to walk much more slowly than my pounding heart thinks is a good idea. I leave the house, pausing for a moment before wrenching the ski mask from my head and the gloves from my hands, forcing myself through the bushes to the side of the house and out to the main street. Normally I wouldn't think twice before leaving the house just as I'd entered, walking up like any normal visitor, but with gunshots and the scream of the woman, the neighbors are sure to be on high alert. Now I'll get noticed.

I shove the mask and the gloves into my pocket, adopting a normal walk down the street. The collar of my jacket is pulled high around my neck, and my hands are jammed inside the pockets of my jacket, but it's a cold night so that's not out of the ordinary. My heart is still pounding, my limbs are still trembling, but I force it away. I can freak out later, right now I have to get the hell out of here. My car is only a few blocks away, I have to reach it.

I manage to get to my car, sliding into the driver's seat, before I start hearing the sirens. I'm off on a side street, so I don't see them go past, but I hear it. One of the neighbors called the cops, good. Maybe? There's no trace of my presence there, I made sure of it. With the owners dead – nausea twists my stomach again – there's no one to tell them that things are missing. But then, there's no trace of the killer either. He'd had gloves, just like me, so no fingerprints, and unless some random neighbor saw him leave the house there's no one to ID him either.

No one but me.

My hands clench, and I lean my head back against the headrest, staring at the top of my car. I'm the only one who was witness to that murder, who saw him kill the couple. I know the mark of a professional, and his sick behavior aside, the guy had mostly acted like one, and had definitely been dressed like one. There won't be anything to connect him to the kills, I'd bet on it. Except me.

Why tonight, of all nights? It was just an average hit, a random theft, why the hell did fate decide to drop this on my lap?

I swallow, throwing my seat belt on and starting my car on automatic. Well, I have to tell the cops what I know then, don't I? It was just damn bad luck that I was there at all, I can at least turn it into something good, right?

But then, I'll have to explain why I was there. What the hell am I going to say? I can't tell the cops I broke into the couple's house to steal a bunch of their valuables, and while I was hiding in the closet I happened to witness a murder.

A slightly hysterical laugh breaks out of my throat, and my eyes stare blankly at the steering wheel. Yeah, that would definitely go over well. I can't get caught, I can't afford it. My hands tighten on the wheel for a moment before an idea hits me. I reach over, retrieving my phone from the compartment under the dashboard, and I flip through the contacts until I find the one I'm looking for.

Ishida Uryuu. He's an old friend, and he's in college to be a lawyer of some kind. Maybe he'll have some way around this, some way I can tell the police about what I saw without condemning myself to jail.

The call picks up, and his voice comes in.

"Kurosaki, it is almost two in the morning and I have school at seven. What. Do. You. Want?" His voice is cold and biting, but it barely even registers in my mind.

"Ishida, can you answer a question for me?" I ask, my words coming out in a rush.

"You've called me this late to ask me something?" he snaps. "Call tomorrow."

"Wait!" I say almost desperately, praying that he doesn't just hang up on me.

He doesn't, but his voice is nearly frostbite inducing when he speaks again. "You have about ten seconds to convince me not to hang up, Kurosaki. Now."

"Just fucking do me a favor, alright?!" I snap in desperation, anger breaking through the shell of fear and shock. "Just this fucking once, listen to me! I wouldn't call if it weren't fucking important."

Ishida is silent for several long moments, before answering, "Fine. What do you want, Kurosaki?"

I rub a hand over my face, directing my gaze out the window of the car. "Is there a way someone can testify as a witness to a crime, without saying anything that would incriminate them in a different crime?"

There's a much longer silence, and when Ishida speaks his voice is very quiet and deadly serious. "Yes, there is. Kurosaki, are you asking for yourself?"

"Yes," I admit after a few seconds.

"Tell me what happened," Ishida demands, no room in his tone for any argument.

I rake my hand through my hair, leaning back against the chair again and returning my gaze to the top of my car. "I was in this couple's house, and some other guy broke in and murdered them. Shot them both. I saw it all. I just can't fucking let him get away with it, not when I was there. But no one knew I was there, and I shouldn't have been. How the fuck am I supposed to explain that?"

"You've got a knack for getting yourself into difficult situations, Kurosaki," Ishida says with irritation, "it's just a special gift for you. Alright, listen to me. Firstly, go home, or somewhere else. Wait a few hours. I'm going to assume this just happened, and you do not want to beat the police back to the station. Give them some time to at least investigate everything. Once you're there, tell them that you're a witness to the murder. If they ask anything you can't explain, plead the fifth amendment. As a witness, you're allowed to pick and choose what questions you answer so you don't incriminate yourself. For the love of god, do not tell anyone, anything that is incriminating. Think very carefully before you answer anything at all. Understand?"

"Yes," I manage, and Ishida sighs.

"Please tell me that whatever you were doing, there's no evidence to tie you there."

"No, there's not."

"Good. Follow my instructions, and you should be alright. Anything past that, is your own damn fault," he sighs again, "and good luck, I suppose."

I take Ishida's advice. I head home, carefully changing out of my very thief looking clothes and stowing away my bag of loot in a safe place. My sisters are asleep, as they should be this late, so I spend a few hours sitting in my room, trying to stop the persistent tremble in my hands. I've seen people hurt before, and killed, but nothing has ever made my hands shake like this. I've got a temper, but I'm a professional. My hands are always steady, I'm steady, and my inability to make them still is frightening.

It's almost six in the morning when I finally drag myself out of the house, leaving a note on the door for my sisters so they won't worry, and drive myself to the police station. It's intimidating to pull up in front of the large building, to park next to it and walk past that long line of cop cars and trucks. This is somewhere, with my line of business, I prayed I'd never be. And here I am walking into it willingly.

I step aside for a couple cops, swallow down the fear building in my chest, and step through the doors. It's hard to walk inside, but I manage it. The floor is nearly covered with work stations, though only about half are manned. Oh Christ, where do I even go?

Luckily, I don't have to answer that. One of the cops passing by sees me and stops, obviously recognizing how lost I am. He's a little taller than me, dressed in just a plain black t-shirt tucked into some tight blue jeans. His badge is swung open over his belt, and he's got a tie loosely knotted around his neck. His hair is black, short, and spiked, but it's his face that makes me pause in my answer to his greeting.

"Can I help you?"

He's got a tattoo on his left cheek, a black sixty-nine, and three thin scars over his right eye. By the time I manage to suppress the surprise enough to answer him, his left eyebrow is arched over his grey eyes, and he's raised the mug of coffee he's holding to his lips.

"I'm a witness to a murder," I manage to force out against all my instincts. The cop's eyes widen a little, and the coffee drops back down, untouched.

"Which one?" he asks, his voice guarded.

"A couple, earlier tonight, at about one-thirty."

The cop's jaw clenches, and for a second I think I've made a really terrible mistake, before he speaks. "Ah, that one's my case." He shifts the folder under his left arm over to be pinned under his right before he extends his left hand towards me, and I shake it after a moment of hesitation. "I'm Detective Hisagi, please come with me."

He escorts me back into the depths of the station, past the eyes of the other cops, to one of the holding rooms. It looks just the same as any show, with one large mirrored wall, a single desk in the center of the room, and a chair on either side. He motions me towards one chair, and sinks into the other.

"Now when you say you're a witness," he says, taking a small sip of the coffee before setting it down on the table alongside the folder, "do you mean you were outside? We had several neighbors report seeing a man leave the house, and hearing gunshots."

"No, I was in the house. I saw it happen."

Hisagi pauses, his eyes fixed on me. "You saw the murders occur?" he asks, his voice low. I nod, and a flurry of expressions crosses his face, too fast for me to identify. "Stay here for just a minute," he says, getting to his feet. He leaves the room in a hurry, the door swinging closed behind him, and I lean forward on the table, resting my head in my hands.

Now that I'm here, there's really no backing out of it. I don't think the cops would take too kindly to me refusing to say anything after I came in here and announced myself like that.

The door swings open again, and Hisagi comes back in and sits back down.

"Are you willing to go on file with a statement?" he asks, grey eyes slightly narrowed.

"Yes," I confirm, straightening up a little and letting my hands fall.

He nods, and leans back in the chair. "Please state your name."

"Kurosaki Ichigo."

"Alright, Kurosaki. Would you please tell me what happened?"

I take in a deep breath, clenching my hands to make them stop shaking. "I was in their house, the couple, in their closet. I heard the front door slam, and some shouts. They sounded panicked, and I heard a voice I didn't recognize, so when I heard them come towards the bedroom, where I was, I closed the door to the closet and hid inside. He came in first, the killer, with a gun. He directed them to the middle of the room, and shot the man. She screamed, and he said a couple things before shooting her too. I didn't see, I couldn't look, but I think he carved something into their chests before he left."

"You weren't at the scene when the police arrived though. Why did you leave?"

"Are you kidding?" I ask, before I can stop myself, and he raises an eyebrow. "I freaked out," I explain, carefully censoring myself, "and at the time it seemed like a really bad idea to be found at the scene of a murder with nobody else in sight. I ran."

"Understandable. Could you describe the murderer please?"

I nod, lowering my eyes to the table. "Really tall, and thin, in black clothes. He had long black hair, past his shoulders, and one dark grey eye. The other was under a black eye patch," from the corner of my eye I see Hisagi tense, before he reaches for the folder on the table.

"Kurosaki," he says, paging through the folder, "was this the murderer?" He swings the folder around, and my breath catches in my throat. It's a picture of him, the killer, in front of one of the police backdrops marking his height. He's got the same nasty grin as he had in the house.

"Yes," I confirm, and Hisagi's eyes light up in satisfaction. He taps his fingers at the top of the photo, watching me.

"This is Noitora Jiruga. He's been under suspicion for a long time as an assassin for hire, working for a large crime organization. We've arrested him half a dozen times, but we've never gotten enough evidence to get him in a courthouse. You're absolutely certain this is the murderer that you saw in that house?"

"Positive."

"Kurosaki, are you willing to testify in court?"

I hesitate, but nod. "Yes."

Fuck this guy. I'm not an assassin, but I am a professional, and this guy's behavior is sickening, a total disgrace. If I can take the bastard down, make him step aside for real professionals, then I'll fucking do it.

Nine years I've been after Noitora. It was the first case I ever got handed, with a grunted 'good luck' and a roll of my boss's eyes, and I've been working on it ever since. Between cases I actually had a hope of closing, of course. At the time I got the case he'd already wracked up seventeen victims, and including tonight's murders he's up to fifty-nine, allegedly. Professionals are the hardest ones to pin, even though Noitora barely fits that moniker. He kills whoever he's set on, true enough, but he also makes a point of making sure we know it was him. The Gothic '5' he carves into his victim's chests is very distinctive.

Of course, officially, we can't pin anything on him. He's just our prime suspect up until I can make something stick, and take him down.

So the kid sitting across from me, Kurosaki Ichigo, is an absolute godsend. He's seen Noitora, watched him commit murder, and while I'm sure that's traumatized the kid pretty severely, it's also making me want to go dancing down the halls of the police station. If I had any less of a reputation as the stalwart workaholic, I'd do it. He's a witness, an honest to god witness, and that isn't something we've ever had on Noitora.

I despise Noitora, and that isn't a word I use lightly. It hadn't been a personal thing up until I'd pulled him in the first time, after the twenty-third murder had come past my desk. Unlike every one before then, there was the slightest bit of evidence in that case, just enough to force him to come in for questioning. He'd grinned at me the whole time, unconcerned and hiding behind his lawyer, and when I'd finally been forced to end the interrogation, like some five year old kid getting his way, he'd stuck his tongue out at me.

The bastard had the five tattooed on his tongue, right there in plain sight.

Oh, I'd wanted to strangle him right there for daring to mock us, mock me, that blatantly.

"Kurosaki, are you willing to testify in court?"

The kid pauses, hesitating, and for a moment I think it's about to go out the window. I can force him to testify, but it will make things much more difficult. If I'm going to have any hope of pinning this on Noitora, I need everything to go as smoothly as possible. But then the kid takes in a breath, determination turning his brown eyes to steel, and he nods.

"Yes."

Now I've got the bastard.

I snap the file closed, restraining the grin that wants to take over my face, and start to stand. "That's absolutely wonderful, Kurosaki, thank you. I'll need to make a call, shouldn't be more than a minute or two." He nods, accepting, and I exit the room, pulling my cellphone from my jeans.

I lean on the wall beside the door, waiting for my practically official partner to pick up. It rings four or five times, it is barely seven and he's not much of a morning person so that's understandable, before he answers.

"Food, or Jiruga?"

Kensei sounds remarkably awake, and it takes me a moment to realize that of course he is, he got the same alert from tonight's murder that I did. Man, I've really been up too long if I'm missing simple connections like that.

"Jiruga," I answer. "I've got good news."

"Then spit it out, Shuuhei," he grumbles, "I've been up thirty goddamn hours, no wordplay right now."

"We've got a witness." The silence is absolute.

"For the love of god, tell me you're not joking." His voice sort of resembles a growl, but I've been around his particular grumbles for too long, they don't phase me anymore.

"You think I'd joke about something like this?" I ask rhetorically. "Get your ass down here so I can question the kid."

"Ten minutes," he says, before abruptly hanging up.

I shove my phone back in my pocket, turning to head back into the room with the kid. He's got his head in his hands, but he looks up when I step inside. I shut the door before answering his questioning look.

"Jiruga is pretty well known, even if we haven't been able to convict him of anything. My department is cooperating with the FBI to bring him down, so due to the red tape I can't go any further into questioning you until their representative is here. It shouldn't be more than fifteen minutes."

The kid is freaked out, I've been doing this long enough to see the minuscule tremble in his shoulders and the background fear in his eyes, but he only nods. "Alright."

"Can I get you anything?" I ask. "Water, bad coffee?"

He gives a soft snort of amusement and a shaky smile. "No, thanks. Don't suppose there's a more comfortable place to wait?"

Yeah, I wish. I take the seat across from him, shaking my head. "This is about as comfortable as this whole station gets, sadly." I reach for my cup of coffee, grimacing slightly at both the flavor – I wasn't kidding when I said it was bad coffee – and the lukewarm temperature. "I can keep you company, though. I can also go, if that would make you more comfortable."

He gives me a grateful look, but shakes his head. "Rather keep my mind off things."

Poor kid. He can't be more than twenty-two, if that. "Well, what do you want to talk about then? I'm a mostly open book."

Kurosaki studies me for a couple seconds, before blurting out, "What's with the tattoo?"

I can't help the smirk. Everyone wonders, so few dare to ask. "That representative, from the FBI? We've been working together over the Jiruga case almost nine years now. A few years ago I got in too deep with an undercover operation, got caught, and he got me out of there alive. This," I tap the tattoo, a black '69' on my cheekbone, "is in honor of him."

"A sixty-nine though, really?"

Okay, yeah. "I might have been a little intoxicated when I got it," I admit, to a tiny smirk from the kid, "but I don't regret it. He saved my life."

Kensei, and the rest of his department, might have laughed their asses off the first time they saw the new tattoo, Hirako – Kensei's boss – might mock me for it incessantly, but I legitimately don't regret it. I owed Kensei, even if he'd never have said anything, for pulling my ass out of there.

"And the scars?" the kid asks cautiously, and I give a soft snort of amusement.

"Same thing. I was about ten seconds away from being dog food – and I mean that literally – when he got me out of there. I ended up with some souvenirs." That particular crime boss had a nasty habit of feeding disloyal minions to his dogs, giant brutes that they were. I was beyond luckyto get out of there with no permanent injuries.

He winces as I raise the coffee to my lips, leaning back into his chair for the first time. Good, that means I've calmed him down at least a little. I finish off the last of my coffee, setting down the now empty cup, and flip open my file. I've got everything in here more or less memorized, but that doesn't mean I can't freshen up on it now that I'm finally going to be able to use it against that bastard Jiruga. I keep it carefully tilted back, holding it in my hands, so the kid can't see it. There's nothing in here that's classified, but there's no use risking traumatizing him again; there are some decently graphic photos in here.

Jiruga doesn't always just kill his victims. Sometimes, with women, he rapes them first. One more mark on the list of reasons I really want to get this bastard. The kid's lucky the woman killed tonight didn't suffer that, that he didn't have to watch it.

"Hisagi," I raise my eyes to the kid, who's staring down at the metal table. "This guy, Noitora, how many others has he killed?"

I pause, watching the kid, but he doesn't look up at me. "Are you sure you want to know?" I ask, and he gives a jerky nod. "There's fifty-nine, including tonight's murders, that we're attributing to him."

The kid nods again, looking up and off to the side, at the wall. "Yeah," he says quietly, almost like he's confirming something to himself. My eyes narrow, but I don't press. Until Kensei gets here, until we begin recording the kid's answers, there's no sense prying for more information.

We sit in silence, waiting, as I skim back through my file and the kid stares at the table. The kid's relaxed significantly, but he's certainly not calm. The fear has eased, the shakiness, but it's left a hard anger in its place. It's an anger that mildly disturbs me, to be honest. It's not so much pissed, or furious, but... determined. The kid, Kurosaki, has fortified himself with anger, and that's only easy to do if you're practiced at it.

Eventually there's a hard knock at the door, before it unceremoniously gets shoved open. Kensei enters, a cardboard cup of coffee in each hand, and casually kicks the door closed again. Kurosaki doesn't start, but he does look over at the new arrival. My partner is just a little shorter than me, with extremely short, light grey hair, and light brown eyes. He's got one golden ring in his left eyebrow, and three similar ones in the ear on the same side. He's generally serious, but also highly aggressive, and completely rebellious to the idea of an FBI agent. He despises suits.

Instead, he's in a dark purple tank-top, with a white trim, a pair of dull green cargo pants, and black combat boots. No matter how much Hirako may snap at him, I highly doubt that will ever change.

"Told you, Shuuhei, ten minutes." I close my file as he hands me the cup of coffee, taking it from him with a thankful nod.

"Kurosaki, this is agent Muguruma Kensei, with the FBI. Kensei, this is our witness, Kurosaki Ichigo." I take a sip of the wonderfully hot coffee, watching as Kensei gives the kid a nod.

"You're a fucking miracle, kid. Been on this case twelve goddamn years and we've never had a witness that saw anything worth a damn. You're prepared to testify?" He's got it even worse than I do, he's been after Jiruga for twelve years, I've only been after him for nine.

"Yeah," Kurosaki says with a nod, brown eyes full of steel, "I am." The kid's something alright, most people don't harden up that fast. In fact I should probably run his name, just in case. Miracles usually come with drawbacks.

"Great." Kensei settles down next to me, leaning one hip against the table, and takes a gulp of coffee before speaking again. "How about you run us through what happened, kid? Don't spare us the details, everything helps."

He repeats what he told me, but with a large variety of extra bits and details that he hadn't included the first time. It's a good account, more than enough to drag Jiruga into a court, but something nags at me. A glance at Kensei lets me know that he's noticed the same thing. The kid doesn't use the victim's names, doesn't refer to them in anything but impersonal terms, and in addition to that his account starts very abruptly with Jiruga entering the house.

"Did you know the deceased couple?" I ask.

"No, I didn't."

"Yet you were in their closet?" The kid nods, before affirming it with a quiet, 'yes'.

"So why were you in their closet?" Kensei asks in one of his more friendly growls.

The kid winces, hesitates for a moment, and then guiltily says, "I plead the fifth amendment."

Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Kensei gives a short growl, pushing away from the table, and I lean back with a muttered curse. I rub a hand over my eyes, restraining most of the grimace. We finally get a witness, and this happens?

Kensei's hands slam down onto the metal table, making me flinch in surprise, and I reach forward to grab my FBI partner's arm so he won't hurt the kid. "Kensei-"

"Kurosaki," Kensei snaps sharply, "were you part of Jiruga's hit in any way?"

The kid's eyes widen in shock, and the next second he's standing to meet Kensei head on, a dark scowl on his face and eyes narrowed in fury. "Never!" he almost shouts. "Regardless of what else I do, I'd never hurt someone!"

"Good!" Kensei says back in the same tone, an almost manic grin taking over his face. Oh Christ, I'd forgotten how insane a lack of sleep makes Kensei. "Then we can take this son of a bitch down, huh?!"

Kurosaki flinches back, eyes widening for the second time, before a more subdued grin appears on his face. "That sounds good," he says, voice much softer and almost relieved. Maybe I should take this to safer ground before Kensei does something a little too psychotic to get away with.

"So," I intervene, as the kid sits back down and Kensei resumes his spot leaning against the table, "hypothetically, Kurosaki, why would someone in your position be in the victim's closet at the time of the murder?"

"Hypothetically?" he confirms, and I nod. Hypothetical situations are the best way to get information from people without actually getting them to actually admit to anything. "Hypothetically, they might have broken into the house and been robbing the safe. Random coincidence that the murder happened."

A thief. Our witness is a goddamn thief.

Well, so be it. The prosecuting lawyer can work out how to best phrase everything so Kurosaki's testimony is still worth something, and if the kid doesn't accidentally say anything incriminating, it's really not our business. If the kid is any good at his 'job', there won't be anything to tie him there anyway.

"Does it really matter what I was doing there?" he asks, and I shrug. Kensei answers before I can.

"Not to us, we just want to bring Jiruga down. But Jiruga usually has some nasty lawyers, and they'll want to discredit you however they can. If they can make you seem untrustworthy, the jury will put less stock in your testimony. Right now you're about everything we're going on, without you, all of this will fall apart. The bastard's hard to get evidence on."

The kid nods, and then gives a tight smile. "Whatever you need then, let's get him."

Jiruga goes down hard.

In the end, whatever powers he was working for abandoned him. He ended up with a state-assigned defense lawyer, and went down without much of a fight. We pinned him for all fifty-nine cases of murder, tied neatly together by that damn tattoo on his tongue. I've never felt more satisfied to close a case.

"So what the hell are we supposed to do now?" I ask Kensei, as he nudges my leg below the table of the booth we're sitting in. "I mean, it's not like we've got any official ties."

"Official ties be damned, we've got nine years of history. You go silent on me and I'll kick your ass, brat. Dinner tonight?"

"Alright, I'm down. Back to work?" Kensei nods, and as we both make to stand a familiar face steps in front of our table. I settle back down as Kurosaki gives us a small wave

"Hey," the kid says, just a little awkwardly. "I just wanted to say thanks, some of the other cops pointed me this way."

Kensei snorts, throwing one arm over the back of the booth. "Thank us? Fuck, kid, we should be thanking you." He shoots me a glance, and I catch the air of mischief in it. "Your tendencies for stealing things aside." Well, I suppose for the sake of the kid I can play along this time.

"Don't think I've forgotten about that, Kurosaki," I say with a fake sternness. I could never hunt the kid down now, he's done us all way too huge of a favor, but he doesn't need to know that.

"Going to start watching me?" he asks, not a trace of worry in his voice.

"I might, you don't keep out of trouble."

Kurosaki smirks, head rising, and there's a glint of challenge in his eyes. "I don't make any promises. Good luck, Shuuhei." He turns on his heel, hands in his pockets, and strolls out of the cafe.

"Cheeky little bastard," Kensei grunts, but he's grinning. "I like him."

"Yeah," I decide, agreeing with him. "So do I."